88 U. S. NATIONAL MUSEUM BULLETIN 211 



Mrs. Irene G. Wheelock (1904) says that incubation — 



Lasts thirteen days, and the young remain in the nursery twelve days longer, 

 leaving it before they are able either to fly or to perch. Yet so protective is their 

 coloring and so jealously does the long grass guard its secret that, search as you 

 may within a circle where you know they are hidden, you will not find one of them. 

 For two weeks longer they remain with their parents, learning to hunt grass- 

 hoppers, beetles, and crickets, to hide in the shadow of a green tuft, to bathe in the 

 shallows at the brook's edge, and last of all, to perch in low bushes at night with 

 others of their kind. As soon as they have mastered these things, they are able to 

 provide for themselves and are abandoned by the parents. 



Several observers have reported that two broods are raised in a 

 season, even in the more northern parts of the bird's range. This 

 seems likely, for the nesting season begins early and continues well into 

 the summer. Dawson and Bowles (1909) say that in Washington, 

 "one brood is usually brought off by May 1st and another by the middle 

 of June"; they add that the young are "very precocious and scatter 

 from the nest four or five days after hatching, even before they are 

 able to fairly stand erect." Bryant (1914) says that, in California, 

 "the first nesting usually occurs in April and May and the second in 

 July and August." His figures show the rapid increase in the weights 

 of young birds; the egg ready to hatch weighed 0.135 ounce, the young 

 1-day-old 0.25, the 8-day-old 2.50, and an adult 4.00 ounces. 



Plumages. — The molts and plumages of the western meadow- 

 lark are the same as those of the eastern bird, which are fully explained 

 under that species and need not be repeated here. 



Food. — A great mass of information has been published on the food 

 of the western meadowlark, mainly from investigations made in Cali- 

 fornia. The most concise account, though based on the study of com- 

 paratively few specimens, is given by F. E. L. Beal (1910). In an 

 examination of 91 stomachs, distributed throughout the year, he 

 reported that "the food consists of 70 percent of animal matter to 

 30 of vegetable. Broadly speaking, the animal matter is made up of 

 insects and the vegetable of seeds." Beetles constitute the largest 

 item in the animal matter; the amount for the year is almost 27 per- 

 cent, practically half of which consists of predatory ground beetles, 

 an argument against the meadowlark, as the beetles prey on other 

 insects. 



Lepidoptera, largely caterpillars, amount to about 15 percent, wasps 

 and ants nearly 6 percent, bugs (Hemiptera) a little more than 4 per- 

 cent, and grasshoppers only 12 percent for the whole year, but 42 

 percent in August. Other items included crickets, craneflies, spiders, 

 sowbugs, and a few snails. Of the vegetable food, only one stomach 

 contained anything "doubtfully identified as fruit pulp." And only 

 2 percent of the yearly food was weed seeds, a surprisingly small 

 amount for a ground-feeding bird. The remainder consisted of grain, 



